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Jonathan Neufeld
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Contact Information
Email: jonathan.a.neufeld@vanderbilt.edu
Office: 111 Furman Hall
Phone: 615-343-8670
Fax: (615) 343-7259
Degrees
Ph. D., Columbia University (2005), Philosophy
M.A., King's College, University of London (1994), Philosophy
B.A., University of Minnesota (1993), Political Science
Research Area
Neufeld’s research interests are in Philosophy of Music, Aesthetics, Political Philosophy, and Philosophy of Law. He is particularly interested in problems surrounding performance and interpretation.
Current Research
Neufeld is currently working on two books. First, tentatively titled Music in Public: How Performances Shape Democracy (under contract at Oxford University Press) claims that performance in the western classical music tradition is best understood as an authoritative and critical contribution to a public sphere. By drawing on and developing concepts from philosophy of law and political philosophy, he hopes to deal more fruitfully with what he takes to be some of the most influential and interesting aspects of contemporary musical performance. The book pursues its philosophical arguments by working through a number of exemplary cases from recent performance practice that cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by much of contemporary philosophy of music. Second, Listeners, Critics and Judges begins by analyzing a striking parallel between constitutional legal interpretation and the performative interpretation of musical works in the western classical tradition. Investigation of the analogies and disanalogies between the two practices reveals a variety of historical and philosophical relationships between the liberal political public sphere and performance practice in western classical music.
Neufeld was awarded a Collaborative Interdisciplinary Reserch Grant with Jennifer C. Lena (Sociology) in April 2009. Their project, "Music, Authority, and Community," will investigate notions of legitimate authority, coercion, taste, and deliberation in musical communities. It will culminate with a lecture series, and a commission of a new work from Gabriela Lena Frank (Guggenheim Award winning composer) to be premiered in 2010 by the Nashville chamber music group Alias and recorded on Naxos. A project website will be designed in the summer of 2009.
Current C.V. (pdf)
Recent Courses
Neufeld has led graduate seminars entitled "Art and the Public Sphere," "Absolute Music," and "Adorno's Philosophy of Music." In Spring 2010, his seminar will be "18th Century British Aesthetics."
Publications
Books
- Music in Public: How Performances Shape Democracy (Oxford University Press, under contract)
- Listeners, Critics, and Judges (under review)
Articles and Reviews
- "Musical Formalism and Political Performance," Contemporary Aesthetics, Vol 7, 2009.
- "Living the Work: Meditations on a Lark," forthcoming, Journal of Aesthetic Education.
- Review of Matthew Kieran, Revealing Art, New York: Routledge, 2005. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2006)
- Review of David Goldblatt's Art and Ventriloquism, New York: Routledge, 2006. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 65 No. 2 (Spring 2007).
- Review of Hilde Hein's Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently, New York: Altamira, 2006. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol 65 No. 4 (Winter 2007).
- "The Liberal Limits of Legitimate Listening," (under review).
- "Critical Performances," (under review).
- "Epistemic Martyrs and Epistemic Peers," with Scott Aikin, Michael Harbour, and Robert Talisse (under review)
Recent and Upcoming Talks
- "Democratic Virtuosity: Improvisation in Law and Music," to be presented at “Lex Non Scripta, Ars Non Scripta: Law, Justice and Improvisation,” a conference in Montreal hosted under the auspices of the Improvisation, Community and Social Practice, a Major Collaborative Research Initiative, supported by the Suoni de Popolo Music Festival, the McGill Centre for Intellectual Property Policy, and the Faculty of Law at McGill.
- "Musical Emotion and Ethical Character," presented at the American Society for Aesthetics national conference in November, 2008.
- "Musician as Citizen," preconcert lecture for the Lydian String Quartet at Brandeis University in October, 2008.
- "Critical Performances," presented on the main program of the American Philosophical Society, Pacific Division 2008.
- "Emotional and Ethical Expression in Music," (based on 2008 ASA talk above).
- "Habermas and Religious Reasons," with Robert Talisse.
- "19th Century: Autonomy and the Absolute," chapter for the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music.
- "Politics and Aesthetics," in preparation for Philosophy Compass.
- "Adorno and Benjamin," chapter for Continuum's Key Thinkers in Aesthetics.
- With Gregg Horowitz, Neufeld is a co-organizer of the conference Politics, Criticism, and the Arts (2006 program and 2007 program; the next conference is scheduled for Spring 2010) .
- In 2007 Neufeld co-organized the First Annual Online Conference for Aesthetics: Arthur Danto's Transfiguration of the Commonplace: 25 Years Later.
- Neufeld is the classical music reviewer of for the Nashville Tennessean.
- Neufeld oversees the Philosophy Department's website. If you find any problems that needs addressing (dead links, etc.), please contact him.
Work in Progress
Other Activities
